


Emotional Baggage

by Grenegome



Category: Dresden Files - All Media Types, Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Established Relationship, Gen, Kinkmeme, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-27
Updated: 2011-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-28 06:52:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/304971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grenegome/pseuds/Grenegome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bob gives Harry's boyfriend his version of the best friend speech.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Emotional Baggage

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for a prompt at the Dresden Files Kink Meme.

It was one of Harry’s milder entrances to my office. He stuck his head around the door and said cautiously, “So, you know you were saying I should spend some more time in Chicago?”

I did, in fact, know that I had said that. But the flakes of snow in his hair and the worrying blue tinge of his lips distracted me. It was a baking summer’s day outside, and it took a rather concerted effort to make Harry feel the cold these days. “Yes?” I managed after a moment’s pause.

“How about a week? I could... I could use somewhere to stay for a bit.”

“What happened to _I’ll come and go as I please, scumbag_?” Stupid of me, to challenge Harry when he was conceding ground, but I have a pathological desire to challenge his every breath.

“Maeve happened to it. I’m waiting for her to calm down a bit.”

I’m not entirely clear on all the irrational rules governing personal relationships, but I had a vague awareness that perhaps Harry’s pragmatism should offend me. That I should want him at my office door because he missed me, because he wanted to make me smile, not because he was lying low. I wasn’t offended. I was a little proud of him instead, at having the sense to retreat rather than launch himself straight into trouble. And it would be a lie to say I didn’t feel a quiet sense of satisfaction over Harry coming to _me_ when he felt threatened. It was for convenience more than anything; there was no real protection I could offer Harry that he couldn’t provide himself, but my ego didn’t seem to know that.

“I’m happy to have you, Harry. Though I expect to be working late tonight.”

“So’m I,” he muttered, finally shouldering his way past the door and into the office. A heavy looking gym bag hung from his right hand, and I winced at the knowledge that it held all his worldly goods. “Really late actually. Got an errand I won’t have finished til four.”

“That’s fine. Just make sure you knock to wake me.” We’d startled one another out of sleep before, and agreed to avoid doing so in future. “Do you want me to pick anything up for you?”

“Nah,” he said, “I grabbed all my stuff. Can I leave it with you? Don’t want to haul it around the- uh, the place I’ll be in until later.”

“Of course.” I left him to his secrets. He had so many after all.

“Cool,” Harry said and moved forward, striding around my desk on his long legs to drop the bag beside my chair. He stooped over it and addressed his belongings with something that sounded suspiciously like _sleep tight_.

“I’ll see you later,” he said, coming back up for a kiss. It was evidently intended to be a chaste brushing of lips, but I turned into it, tilting my head upward helpfully and opening up to him. “Mmm,” he said, appreciating the gesture but lingering only briefly before pulling away, “bye John.”

A bare twenty seconds after the door clicked shut behind Harry, the bag spoke to me: “Well now, _that_ was worth waking up for.”

I went still. Harry wouldn’t endanger me deliberately, or at least not in such an underhand fashion, but it was possible he might overlook something. He had acquaintances less forthright than himself.

The unexpectedly eloquent bag was already inside the subtle protective circle surrounding my desk; the magical panic button I’d automatically moved my hand towards was entirely redundant. I eyed the intercom instead. Gard was likely better equipped than I to deal with this, but any sudden move to summon her might provoke an attack.

“Who are you?” I asked, hand moving delicately into my jacket, palming the hilt of a knife. It had been a tell of mine, back in the day, when I could still afford to have one. Now it was simply caution rather than nerves; the Fae feared a steel blade, anything else might flinch from a sharp point and a quick hand.

“A friend of Harry’s,” the bag said, and then started to unzip itself. I drew the knife and stood, slowly. We hadn’t quite tipped into hostilities. Perhaps I could reason with it, whatever it was.

A skull rolled out of the bag. Its eye sockets flickered with orange fire.

I blinked. I’d seen a lot of human remains in my time, but they were usually more fleshy.

“I wasn’t aware Dresden had taken up necromancy. Now, who are you?”

“I’m not actually a skull, moron. What are you? Metaphysically illiterate?”

Not exactly, no, because I had the sense to answer with the same question, repeated for a third time. “Who are you?”

“Bob,” said the skull. “Which tells you nothing. Wrong question. And Harry thinks you’re so smart.”

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Bob. Now _what_ are you?”

“A Spirit of Air and Intellect. Harry’s spirit, to be exact, and I have business with you, John Marcone.” Its eyes flickered red. I dived for the intercom button, but it burst into an angry shower of sparks beneath my hand. “I thought we’d have more of a _tête-à-tête_ ,” the skull continued. “Traditional for this kind of discussion, right? We can do without your babysitter.”

“And what discussion might that be?”

“The discussion about your intentions, Baron.”

“My... intentions.” Good grief. “He’s a grown wizard, spirit. Not your virgin daughter.”

The skull snorted. It was somewhat unsettling from a being without nostrils. “I don’t care about his virtue. Hell, if he was less of a stick in the mud, I’d come along for the ride. I want to know what you _want_ from him. Apart from his ass.”

From Harry? I wanted everything. His time. His attention and affection. His insolence and his ragged heroism. I damn well _didn’t_ want to be discussing my wants with a skull. “That’s none of your concern.”

The red of Bob’s eye-fires darkened. “It is. This time it is. I never get to meet the jackasses that get their claws into him before they tear him up.”

“I haven’t harmed him.”

“Right. When he comes in limping, I don’t just see the bruises. I get to see the soul sickness too, all the raw edges of his aura- ”

“I haven’t harmed him, spirit.”

“You get him scared,” the skull pointed out. “Mad.”

“Everything makes him mad,” I said. And I’d been intimidated a time or two by his power myself, but I didn’t need to draw attention to that.

The skull chuckled. “True. But not the way you do, Marcone. Not all mad and _confused_.”

It knew altogether too much about us. I stepped away from it, planning to retreat towards the door.

“Stop,” it said. I ignored it. “ _Stop_.” And then I did, feet frozen in place. Hostilities.

“You say you’re Harry’s spirit, and you’re concerned with my intentions. Have you considered his? He won’t thank you for threatening me.”

The spirit chuckled, mandible bouncing its skull around morbidly. “Hiding behind your boyfriend? You aren’t very good at this mobster thing, are you?”

“Best in Chicago,” I said. Something about the spirit, as hostile and irreverent as it was, put me in mind of Harry. My responses were softer, more juvenile and competitive than they should have been.

“Hah. And anyway, _Harry_ doesn’t even know Harry’s intentions. Like I said: Confused. But he’s not the only one, is he?” No. Dresden was a complication I could not afford. As an ally, or an employee, he’d be a quantifiable asset. As my... whatever he was, he made me spend too much time second guessing myself, tripping over his expectations and paranoia and my own darker impulses. But we were getting by. The city hadn’t suffered for us.

I didn’t answer it. I weighed my knife in my hand and wondered if flinging it at the skull would do me any good. I wondered if chipping the cranium would make Harry angry. He owned so little, after all, but he’d been carting this Bob around with him. _Sleep tight_ he’d said, with quiet affection.

Context sucker punched me: The intimidation tactics, questions about my intentions, Harry's conspicuous absence...

I was getting the Best Friend Talk.

From a skull.

I took a calming breath and then did my best to speed things along. "Shouldn’t you threaten me with a nasty death if I hurt him?”

“I’m getting there. Anyway, I’d want something better than your little mortal life in forfeit. Hey, maybe your empire! I haven’t destroyed a legacy in decades, might be fun.” The eyelights were flickering faster, I thought, perhaps in amusement. I didn’t rise to the threat; retribution was its prerogative, and I wasn’t about to take these things personally.

“I'd advise you to defer to Harry before laying waste to my business portfolio. Now release my feet. It’s beneath my dignity to start crying for help, but I will if you force me.”

“I could stop you,” it told me. “I could slip inside your head and take the wheel. I could make sure you _never_ hurt him.”

My life used to be simpler. I had to do my best to avoid getting captured, tortured, killed. In this brave new world, I could add _don’t get possessed_ to my daily itinerary. I didn’t think the skull was bluffing, but it did seem to be overlooking one obvious point: “So you could. But then _you_ would hurt him by doing so.”

“ ...Huh,” it said, in a tone of dawning suprise. “I would? Aw... crap. Is this a morality thing? It is, isn’t it?”

“A morality thing. And a consent thing and a trust thing. All of which Harry is rather keen on, I assure you.”

“Bugger,” the skull said. “Every time.”

I pressed my advantage. “If you’re willing to get back in the bag and return to sleep, I can forget to mention this to Harry.”

The skull hummed and skittered around a little. “Not sleepy. Bedtime story?”

“I don’t have any reading material on hand.”

“You could tell me one.” The force holding me in place vanished. “Harry’s first time! Was he coy? Did he blush when he spread his legs for you?”

“ _Enough_ ,” I snarled, and all of a sudden I’d made my way over to the skull and swept it up from the floor. Gard would have scolded me I’m sure, but I’ve discovered I have surprisingly good instincts for this kind of thing. “Sleep.”

In my hand, the eyelights flickered out. I stared into the empty sockets of the skull.

“You’d make a good paperweight,” I muttered childishly, but tucked it back in the bag before zipping it closed. Harry got fidgety about people touching his stuff now he had so little of it; there was no point intentionally unsettling him.

I didn’t need to share this particular discussion with him after all.


End file.
